Before he can leave, another thought hits my mind. The entire reason we went into that dragon-cairn in the first place was left behind there.
A place I can’t get back to now that the Magnussen Jarl is onto us.
“The contents of the stone altar in the dragon-cairn?” I ask the captain quickly, needing to know. “What happened to it?”
“The Jarl confiscated it. All of it.” Captain Mortensen frowns now, though he tells me what happened to the strange arcane items and scrolls that were in that altar, which once belonged to my Bloodwalker ancestor. He turns back, a curious look on his face. “That’s what you went down there to find, wasn’t it? Everything in that altar.”
“It was.” I nod, not seeing any reason to not tell him. “We need those things, Captain. To stop something truly heinous. A terrible creature I’ve been charged to investigate by the King himself.”
“You’re on an investigation for the King?” Captain Mortensen’s eyebrows rise now as he blinks. “Why didn’t you say that before? That changes things.”
“We have a Blood Seal from the King that confirms our passage through any territory we need to enter on our hunt, which is in the pocket of my vest from the cairn,” I say firmly now, knowing that being on an investigation for the King trumps whatever bad beef Bjorn has with his father and vice versa. It even trumps breaking into a forbidden heritage site, though Magnussens are deeply superstitious about their dead and wouldn’t see things that way.
Still, it’s a card I can play, and a good one.
But there’s been a rebellion against the King; a number of his Jarls pulled their personnel from his military and Kingsguard six months ago, citing that they didn’t like King Huttr Erdhelm’s foreign policies regarding our historical enemies, the Ice Dragons.
The whole thing has been a shitshow for months, leaving the military wanting and the Kingsguard crippled as they trained new people. It’s compromised security across the Lineage, allowing a massive blast to happen on an Ice Dragon-settled island, which started all this bullshit.
I know Jarl Oggi Magnussen was not one of the Jarls who pulled his clan’s support from the King, but he’s also one of the most powerful Jarls in the entire Blood Dragon Lineage.
His warriors unsurpassed—if he ever decided to challenge the King.
“I’ll bring your things, and you can find your Blood Seal,” Captain Mortensen says then, watching me. “Don’t let anyone take it from you. Bring it with you when you have your audience before the Jarl; you must be the one to show it to him, in public, for him to consider it. The Jarl is a dragon who considers the pressure of public opinion in his rule. You’ll need that when you talk to him. The more ammunition you have to hit him with in front of his court, the better.”
“Thank you,” I say now, grateful for the advice. “And the things from the cairn?”
“I can’t bring them to you, but know that they are safe.” The captain nods as he watches me. “But… why do you need those things, Hög Skjaldmær? They’re nothing but a pile of oddities; historical, yes, but empty of whatever magic they once contained. And the scrolls are downright illegible; they’re all written in some dead language nobody here can decipher. Why are they so important for this investigation of yours?”
“I don’t know yet.” I scowl now, knowing the captain speaks the truth as I sigh. “I honestly don’t know what might aid me in killing the Black Dragon of the Usurper from that pile of magical trash. But something in there is valuable to our hunt; the Ancestors told me so.”
I don’t tell the captain my uncertainty about exactlywhohas beenspeaking to me from our Blood Dragon Ancestors. But my mention of the Ancestors at all has the captain on very high alert now. Lifting an eyebrow, he peers at me.
His eyes flaring all gold now with the power of his dragon.
“The Ancestors themselves have charged you with this hunt? Not just our King?” he asks.
“They have,” I respond, hearing an echo of all those dead voices screaming in my ears, like when I was down in the dragon-cairn.Kill it!They shriek at me. Because whatever the Black Dragon of the Usurper is, it decimated tens of thousands of Blood Dragons in its time, giving them terrible deaths.
And my ancestor created it, with my same Bloodwalker magic in her veins.
That knowledge sickens me now, even as it straightens my exhausted spine. I face the captain down hard, knowing I do my Ancestors’ will as I hunt this evil thing to the ends of the earth and back, besides resolving my own need to see it die.
Wherever I need to go to kill it, I will, permission or not, trespassing or not. Captain Olander Mortensen sees that determination in me. He gives a slow nod.
Then sets his fist to his chest—in a Blood Dragon salute.
“Hög Skjaldmær, Bloodwalker of the Ancients,” he says now, with reverence, “I will fetch you the things you need. I will do everything in my power to help you in your Ancestor-bidden hunt. Though I cannot cross my Jarl. I hope you know that.”
“I understand.” I get it that the superstitious nature of the Magnussen Clan makes the captain deeply reverent of our Ancestors. “But how did you know I was a Bloodwalker? Lots of our shamans can contact the Ancestors.”
“Yes, but only Bloodwalkers take multiple mates.” Captain Mortensen’s fist is still on his heart. “And a Bloodwalker’s power only calls to the strongest drakes; which is why I feel your magic calling to me. Likemany Magnussens of station, I was trained in our Blood Dragon mystical arts. Bjorn and I grew up together and trained together in the Magnussen Border Guard. We also trained with the famed Bloodwalker shamaness Maryse Allbright when we were young. I knew the feel of her power, then. Just as I know the feel of yours now.”
“Maryse is dead,” I say then, feeling like he should know, as some deep instinct fills me. “She was killed by this demon I’m chasing, the Black Dragon Usurper of the ancients.”
“I had not heard that.” The captain’s voice is deadly soft now, as sorrow sweeps his eyes. Tightening his fist, he pounds his heart once, twice, thrice, in a gesture of Blood Dragon mourning.
“Kill it for me,” he says softly now, so softly it makes me wonder what his relationship with Maryse actually was long ago. “Kill whatever it is you’re chasing, which gave Maryse her demise. I will do… anything in my power to make it happen.”
